1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for loading image receiving material in a printing system, the printing system comprising a print engine capable of printing on the image receiving material, a control unit for controlling the printing on the image receiving material, at least one input holder for loading the image receiving material, and a user interface for interacting with a user of the printing system.
The present invention further relates to a print system, which is configured to apply the method according to the present invention and a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising computer executable program code configured to instruct a computer to perform the method according to the present invention.
2. Description of Background Art
According to U.S. Pat. No. 6,283,653 it is checked to see if there is image receiving material loaded in a current input holder.
In a productive print system, it is important that images comprised in a print job are printed on the correct side of a sheet. This is dependent on how the sheets are put into the input holder. Each sheet has two sides or so-called faces, a front side and a rear side. For example the facial orientation of the sheet may be a face up orientation or a face down orientation. The face up orientation is an orientation having the front side of the sheet upwards in the input holder. The face down orientation is an orientation having a front side of the sheet downwards in the input holder. A face up orientation and a face down orientation may be defined similarly for an output holder for holding printed image receiving material. For example, the header orientation of the sheet may be a header up orientation or a header down orientation. The header up orientation is an orientation having a pre-printed header of the sheet on a top side of the sheet. The header down orientation is an orientation having the pre-printed header of the sheet on a side of the sheet opposite to the top side of the sheet by rotation of the sheet by π radians in the plane of the sheet. A header up orientation and a header down orientation may be defined similarly for an output holder for holding printed image receiving material.
In particular, oriented image receiving material such as pre-printed image receiving material, pre-punched image receiving material or one-sided coated image receiving material has to be loaded into the input holder of the printing system in the appropriate way to complete the print job in the correct way. Even normal image receiving material, like plain paper, may have small differences in the faces of the image receiving material and may be characterized as an oriented image receiving material. When printing with an inkjet printing system, marking material ejected on the front side or the rear side may have different ink blotting properties on the respective sides. Therefore the face up loading or face down loading of the image receiving material in the input holder may lead to different print quality results on the sides of a sheet.
A fill receipt for a print job with respect to a prescribed facial orientation of the image receiving material to be loaded in the input holder has to be input by the operator of the printing system for a print job for oriented image receiving material. Such a fill receipt may be indicated with adhesive labels for different kinds of image receiving material in an input holder. Such a fill receipt for the print job may be always face up or always face down, dependent on the kind of printing system. This way of working lacks flexibility of input and prevents a print job that uses only one image receiving material, which needs a face up orientation for one part of the print job and a face down orientation for another part of the print job, such as a mix-plex print job. A mix-plex print job is a print job having partly a simplex plexity and partly a duplex plexity. This way of working may even prohibit a kind of print job on oriented image receiving material, which print job needs a duplex print mode and a specific output orientation in an output holder of the printing system.
Image receiving material may also be called medium. An example of an input holder is an input tray, a container or a cassette, but other input holders may be envisioned. An example of an output holder is an output tray, a container or a cassette, but other output holders may be envisioned.